A very powerful personal experience

Ingmar Bergman's mystifying masterpiece, Persona, opens with an image of
light from the lamp of a film projector and then the film running through
the spools. This is followed by a series of images that includes a spider, a
montage from silent comedies, a spike being driven through a man's hand, and
faces in a morgue. The film then cuts to an enigmatic picture of a young boy
watching women's faces appear on a giant screen directly in front of him.
Are these strange images reminding us that we are only observing a film, not
reality?

As Persona begins, Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson), a nurse, is assigned to
care for an actress, Elizabeth Vogler (Liv Ullman) who suddenly ceases to
speak in the middle of a performance of Electra. Alma learns that there is
nothing physically or psychologically wrong with Elizabeth. She just refuses
to communicate verbally. Alma and Elizabeth retreat to the head physician's
summer cottage on a small island to complete her recuperation. Although Alma
is the only one who talks, the relationship grows and Alma is happy that she
has found someone who will listen to her sympathetically. She begins to
share with Elizabeth some of her most vulnerable moments. A high point in
the film is Alma's detailed description of a sexual encounter she had with
two teenage boys while sunbathing on a beach in the nude. Elizabeth appears
to be an attentive listener who, by facial expression, encourages Alma to
reveal more and more personal details.

Alma, however, is deeply hurt when she opens Elizabeth's unsealed letter to
her doctor. In the letter, Elizabeth reveals how she is using Alma as a
"study" and finds her infatuation "charming". Feeling betrayed Alma lashes
out in anger, first berating her patient, then begging for forgiveness. As
soon as physical and emotional violence is depicted, Bergman stops the
narrative and repeats images from the opening sequence, adding a close-up of
an eye as if to remind us again that we are merely prying observers. The
relationship of the two women now becomes a struggle of wills. Alma grows
more desperate as Elizabeth gets stronger and more dominant. Sensing this
new power, Elizabeth seems to transfer her personality to the weaker Alma.
Every nuance of emotion is unforgettably conveyed in the facial expressions
of these two remarkable actresses.

Persona is filled with surreal images and dream sequences in which it is
very difficult to distinguish between illusion and reality. In one scene,
Alma sees Elizabeth entering her room at night, then exiting. When Alma asks
her the next morning if she was in her room, Elizabeth shakes her head no.
We do not know if she is simply not telling the truth, or the event did not
occur. Bergman does not offer help. The same is true for scenes when Mr.
Vogler appears or when Elizabeth looks at a picture of her son that she tore
up at the beginning of the film. Being left on our own to make sense of
these discontinuous elements, we are forced to discard thinking in
traditional linear ways.

I can't say that I fully understood Persona. It may be suggesting that the
persona we assume is merely a mask to cover our fears and insecurities? It
seems that Elizabeth is playing a role as actress, wife, and mother. She
wants to abandon this inauthentic role by refusing to speak. Alma, on the
other hand, acts like a dutiful wife and supportive nurse, but secretly
yearns to be what she perceives Elizabeth to be: strong, independent, and
self-reliant. In a memorable scene, the faces of the two women are morphed
into one composite in a classic overlapping shot, an image that says to me
that underneath the roles we play, we are all the same.

After successive viewings, however, I realized that Persona's greatness does
not lie in understanding, but in its unbearably intimate and poetically
realized images, magnificently conveyed by cinematographer Sven Nykvist. The
raw power of this film totally drew me in and allowed me to get in touch
with my own feelings of hurt and desperation in trying to reach people in my
own life who cannot or will not respond. Persona is not just a classic I
objectively admired, but a very powerful personal experience.

Was the above review useful to you?

126 out of 158 people found the following review useful:

'The human face is the great subject of the cinema. Everything is there'

When talking of Bergman, critics and viewers usually name Wild
Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Cries and Whispers ahead of Persona.
While those films are all amazing and stay very high on my list of all
time favorites, for me, the truly unique and inspirational s 'Persona'
- Bergman's enigmatic masterpiece.

The story is seemingly simple:

"A nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), has been assigned to care for a famous
actress, Elizabeth (Liv Ullman), who suddenly stopped speaking during a
performance of Electra and has remained silent ever since. When they go
to stay in a seaside house owned by Alma's psychiatrist colleague, the
apparently self-confident nurse gradually reveals more and more of
herself in the face of Elizabeth's silence, and is shocked to read a
letter the actress has written implying that Alma is an interesting
case-study. The two women seem almost to exchange identities, or to
become one (strikingly expressed visually in a famous shot); in a dream
sequence (or perhaps fantasy), Elizabeth's husband comes to visit and
seems to think that Alma is his wife. Finally Alma, back in her nurse's
uniform, catches a bus to go home, leaving the almost-mute Elizabeth
alone."

Whether Alma was able to get her identity back remains one of the
film's many questions.

What is absolutely wonderful in the film  performances from two
actresses. Anderson is the one who has to carry almost the entire
dialog, her voice is one of the film's priceless treasures while Ullman
is equally powerful in expressing hundreds of emotions through her face
and eyes. Sven Nykvist's camera, the third star of the film makes two
stars shine so bright.

Each scene in 81 minutes long film is memorable, some of them just
unforgettable. For instance, the long scene where Alma reveals her most
intimate memories of a sexual encounter with two boys while sunbathing
nude with another girl on an empty beach, is infinitely more erotic to
listen to than it would have been to see in flashback.

There is so much to think about in Persona. One major question concerns
Elizabeth's silence: is it elective, as happens in Tarkovsky's "Andrei
Rublyov" , or is it some kind of mental breakdown?. The documentaries
about the war horrors that Elizabeth watches on TV suggest the former;
the fact that it suddenly happens during a stage performance of
"Electra" suggests the latter. I keep thinking about it. Why "Electra"
of all plays? The story of the daughter who hated her mother and wanted
her dead  does it reflect the accusation brought up by Alma that
Elizabeth did not love her deformed son and wanted him dead? Did
Elizabeth become so overwhelmed by guilt realizing that her life
reminded so much of Electra's story? We don't know for sure, and
Bergman does not help. The identical monologue in which Alma is
accusing Elizabeth is the film's resolution. We hear it twice: first
time, camera is concentrating on Elizabeth's face, second time  on
Alma's. Is Alma talking about Elizabeth or herself or both? After that
encounter on the beach, Alma became pregnant and had an abortion. The
monologue may reflect her feelings of guilt and emptiness as well as
Elizabeth's. Does it really happen?

Is Elizabeth a vampire sucking the life out of her victims only to use
them as characters for her acting roles? Is that the ultimate price the
artist is paying for being a great artist? Does he need lives and souls
of others to be able to create? Can he/she love the ones who utterly
depend on them and need their love? This film and later Autumn Sonata
(1978) with Ingrid Bergman as a concert pianist show famous stars as
selfish women who can't and don't love their children. The same
question was brought up also in the earlier "Through a Glass Darkly
(1961)" - in the relationship of the writer and his daughter.

Then there is the question of whether there are really two women at
all; could the whole film be played out as a fantasy of one of them, or
indeed of somebody else? Is there a sexual attraction between the two
women? It might be or might be not. I believe, David Lynch has watched
"Persona" very carefully, thought about it and used some of its ideas
in his own "Mullholland Dr."

There are so many questions in this incredible film that are left
unanswered. For almost forty years, viewers and filmmakers alike have
been trying to find the answers. One thing is obvious  this is one of
the films you want to watch over and over again. I think it should be
seen by any viewer. If you've seen it already  see it again. You'll
learn something new. If you have not seen it  you are in for a great
experience. See it for Sven Nykvist's camera work, for Liv's face, for
Bibi's voice, for the unique and mysterious world that is Ingmar
Bergman's universe.

Was the above review useful to you?

111 out of 141 people found the following review useful:

A Masterpiece

PERSONA may well be Ingmar Bergman's most complex film--yet, like many
Bergman films, the story it tells is superficially simple. Actress
Elizabeth Volger has suddenly stopped speaking in what appears to be an
effort to cease all communication with the external world. She is taken
to a hospital, where nurse Alma is assigned to care for her. After some
time, Elisabeth's doctor feels the hospital is of little use to her;
the doctor accordingly lends her seaside home to Elisabeth, who goes
there with Alma in attendance. Although Elisabeth remains silent, the
relationship between the women is a pleasant one--until a rainy day,
too much alcohol, and Elisabeth's silence drives Alma into a series of
highly charged personal revelations.

It is at this point that the film, which has already be super-saturated
with complex visual imagery, begins to create an unnerving and deeply
existential portrait of how we interpret others, how others interpret
us, and the impact that these interpretations have upon both us and
them. What at first seemed fond glances and friendly gestures from the
silent Elisabeth are now suddenly open to different interpretations,
and Alma--feeling increasingly trapped by the silence--enters into a
series of confrontations with her patient... but these confrontations
have a dreamlike quality, and it becomes impossible to know if they are
real or imagined--and if imagined, in which of the women's minds the
fantasy occurs.

Ultimately, Bergman seems to be creating a situation in which we are
forced to acknowledge that a great deal of what we believe we know
about others rests largely upon what we ourselves project upon them.
Elisabeth's face and its expressions become akin to a blank screen on
which we see our own hopes, dreams, torments, and tragedies
projected--while the person behind the face constantly eludes our
understanding. In this respect, the theme is remarkably well-suited to
its medium: the blankness of the cinema screen with its flickering,
endless shifting images that can be interpreted in infinite ways.

Bergman is exceptionally fortunate in his actresses here: both Liv
Ullman as the silent Elisabeth and Bibi Anderson as the increasingly
distraught Alma offer incredible performances that seem to encompass
both what we know from the obvious surface and what we can never know
that exists behind their individual masks. Ullman has been justly
praised for the power of her silence in this film, and it is difficult
to imagine another actress who could carry off a role that must be
performed entirely by ambiguous implications. Anderson is likewise
remarkable, her increasing levels of emotional distress resounding like
the waves upon the rocks at their seaside retreat. And Bergman and his
celebrated cinematographer Sven Nykvist fill the screen with a
dreamlike quality that is constantly interrupted by unexpected images
ranging from glimpses of silent films to a moment at which the
celluloid appears to burn to images that merge Ullman and Anderson's
faces into one.

As in many of his films, Bergman seems to be stating that we cannot
know another person, and that our inability to do is our greatest
tragedy. But however the film is interpreted, it is a stunning and
powerful achievement, one that will resonate with the viewer long after
the film ends.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

Was the above review useful to you?

110 out of 150 people found the following review useful:

Who Am I?

When I viewed PERSONA recently, I didn't know what exactly to make of
it: what was it telling me, what was its intentions, its ultimate
meaning. Not being a conventional director by far, I felt that Bergman
had deliberately left all this 81 minute of storytelling to me to
figure out... and I may have been right, but I either wasn't getting it
or this was too much of an abstract film to merit any analysis, so my
review was at face value and even ended with the sentence "this is
exactly how Bergman wants it." Seeing it later more emerges, and the
deeper story takes place even if it still seems linear: Elisabeth
Vogler (Liv Ullmann) loses her speech midway through Electra and will
not speak again (except once throughout the entire film, and in an
imagined sequence). There is no apparent reason as to why she has lost
her speech, and the only hint is the horror she witnesses on the
television as war, genocide, and destruction rage on. Other than that
it is never alluded to, her muteness.

Into the picture comes Alma (Bibi Andersson), the nurse who is put to
her care by the suggestion of a psychiatrist. Both retreat to an
isolated home. Seeing that Elisabeth will not talk, Alma fills space
and time with her own erratic ramblings that take shape and form, a
need to fill a void, and that void is of course, Elisabeth, who listens
and listens and listens impassively yet with interest. Alma's stories
are a form of confession: if Elisabeth is the mute who bears the scars
of the world, Alma is the conveyor who purges inner traumas and erotic
experiences, hurtful on a lesser scale. The fact she has been laid so
naked to the woman she is trying to rehabilitate and the fact she
learns this very woman considers her an interesting subject suddenly
shocks her: from being caring, she turns vindictive. A shard of glass
left deliberately to have Elisabeth step over is the catalyst: the
images break, abstract images take place again, and the story
re-starts. But one wonders, what if Elisabeth stepped over the glass
with equal deliberateness? After all, she does need Alma. And she is an
actress foremost. This moment is the one that amps up the tension
between the women and even then they become closer, so close
Elisabeth's husband thinks Alma is her as Elisabeth quietly allows this
to happen. Is Elisabeth re-living some form of event through Alma? Is
Alma the only way another secret involving Elisabeth's child can come
through? Whatever the reason, Alma is clearly a conduit for Elisabeth
to come forth and the merging of their similar faces is the culmination
of this haunting psycho-drama that goes beyond its cinematic
boundaries. No clear resolutions except the almost casual references
that explain both women's return to their own sense of normalcy, but
this somehow inconclusive ending is what gives it the weight of a great
story and excellent Bergman. Reality here is what is so common to us:
who we see ourselves as, how others see us, how self-identification
becomes self-preservation through the experiences of others, good or
bad or a combination of both. Pain and ecstasy are a part of our
make-up, and PERSONA is the best example of the merging of the two.

Not Beyond Intepretation

I've studied Bergman's films and have seen all of them, yet Persona
stands alone as his most brilliant and indeed, the most visually
striking (thanks to the genius of Sven Nykvist).

The story concerns a cracked actress (Liv Ullmann-Bergman's long-time
lover), in hospital for treatment under the guise of a rather insecure
nurse (Bibi Andersson). As the tale of care- giver and patient plays
out, the nurse, Sister Alma, fills the void left by Liv Ullmann's
complete silence and regression by offering a series of confessions on
her own life. These confessions, most poignantly, consist of Alma's
infidelities to her husband, a secret abortion and a unwanted pregnancy
to please her husband. Through the course of the movie, set mainly in a
summer retreat, the two women, left in seclusion, seem to drift into
one another's personae. However, Bergman's dialogue turns more to first
person confessional and not a tale of two women. Eventually, the viewer
comes to the realization that the two women are actually two sides of
the same person. Liv Ullmann represents, in pop-Freudian terms, the
superego as Bibi Andersson is the ego or in other words, the 'actress'
is actually the nurse and Liv Ullmann, the caretaker/observer.

Elisabet Vogler is actually Bibi Andersson's persona; the one who
answers to the external world, whilst shutting out the sensitive,
introspective and broken inner persona, Liv Ullmann. The movie comes to
a sad conclusion, wherein the actress wins out over the delicate,
fractured woman deep within. As the lines in the movie say, they agree
to "nothing", keeping the facade intact to the rest of her reality and
keeping distant from her older husband and abandoning any attempt to
love her son, born to please her husband.

A line in the movie states blatantly that everyone has two personae;
the one external and the one internal. This movie is one of the
greatest human dramas with a psychological force rarely, if ever, seen
today. Along with Casavetes' "A Woman on the Verge" and Lynch's "The
Elephant Man", Bergman and Nykvist commit to film one of the most
introspective studies of mortality, sanity and the human condition.

A masterpiece.

Was the above review useful to you?

95 out of 136 people found the following review useful:

An intriguing, beguiling and fascinating look into the state of individual existence, psychosis and shared experiences

persona n 1: an actor's portrayal of someone in a play; 2: Jungian
psychology
A personal facade one presents to the world, a public image is "as fragile
as Humpty Dumpty"

personas pl: The role that one assumes or displays in public or society;
one's public image or personality as distinguished from the inner
self.

The above definitions help, at least a little, to understand or define
the
experience of Ingmar Bergmann's 1966 film "Persona".

"Persona" is an experience. And "Persona" IS experience. Indescribable not
because it wants to be, but indescribable because it is. Who are we? Who
do
we want to be? Who are we comfortable being? Who do we need to be? And
why?
Some of the overlapping questions in this reviewer's mind during and after
this engrossing and occasionally haunting work include, just how does this
event and that event happen? Is it live, or is it memorex?? Most
notably,
Bergmann's skillful black-and-white film, which stars Bibi Andersson and
Liv
Ullmann, raises complex and interesting questions through the simplest
images and minimum movement of camera and actor. The visual psychology is
remarkable, powerful. Sven Nykvist's textured cinematography vividly
brings
the power (and subtlety) alive. Close-ups of the two lead actors' faces,
and
their symmetry, blend to make strong suggestions about what is transpiring
between the two characters.

The two characters, Alma the Nurse (Andersson) and Elisabet Vogel
(Ullmann),
a stage actress, share very little. Alternately, they might share quite a
lot. Much more perhaps than they want to. Elisabet gives new meaning to
the
expression "silence is golden", and that expression serves the film
perfectly. "Persona" is "Fight Club" before "Fight Club" -- without the
noise, dizzying effects and backgrounds of David Fincher's 1999 film. In
"Persona", everything, from the very beginning to the very end, happen for
a
reason. The minimalist aspects, the editing, the continuous metaphor laden
within dialogue, movement, time and space; the fact that the film is in
Swedish language with English white-text subtitles, and with surrealism
engulfing the viewer, makes Bergmann's "Persona" a pleasure personified
(excuse the pun). Indeed, "Persona" is explicit in feel, mood, tone,
dialogue, revelation and imagery.

Together, Bergmann and Nykvist produce beautiful artistry. There are
moments
of deconstruction within the film to distance its audience, and this is an
artistic statement designed to formulate questions in the viewer's mind,
rather than to baffle the viewer. The moments of deconstruction of
narrative/medium at the beginning, middle and end of "Persona" are what
one
might call psychological, not "special", effects, as audiences today are
accustomed to. The black-and-white film stock of "Persona" symbolizes the
gray areas residing around, within and between Alma and Elisabet. Seeing
this film in a theater is a treat, and although it has been available on
video for many years, it is amazing to experience on a big screen. With
the
artistry and visuals working to perfection to ingeniously challenge the
audience, one is inclined to almost forget the great performances of
Anderson and Ullmann.

Cinema, when articulated through films like "Persona", is never
better.

Was the above review useful to you?

51 out of 78 people found the following review useful:

The most ambiguous, inviting, surreal, whatever-you-can-think philosophical experiment by Bergman

Writing from a hospital bed (as he did with Wild Strawberries, two of
these being films strung out from anguish), Ingmar Bergman put down
almost anything that was in his head to start with (the first five
minutes- some of the most startling and thoroughly symbolic minutes
he's ever directed), then transposed into a story of two women, or one.
This was one of the landmark 'art-films' of the 1960's, with hints of
the horrors of war (in one memorable scene, Elisabeth looks at a
television screen at images of death), introspection regarding sex and
identity, existentialism, and what it means to be an actor.

Some of the more famous directors in history have a kind of 'notorious'
film, by which many people who may not know the bulk of their works
know them by one particular work (with Hitchcock it could be Psycho,
Lucas' Star Wars, Bunuel with Un chien Andalou, Breathless). This
could, arguably, be the one for Bergman, despite a couple of others
likely also holding claim to that title. In other words, this could be
a good place to start with the director if you're not familiar with his
films, or it might not be. But keep this in mind- it's one of his most
unique departures as a filmmaker.

Two of his leading ladies (and, ahem, loves), Bibi Andersson and 25
year-old Liv Ullmann, star as a nurse and an actress, who for the bulk
of the film are at a Doctor's cottage as the nurse tries to help and
likely cure Elisabeth of her ailment (froze on stage, silent but
incredibly observant). In the meantime, Alma the nurse, in a role that
gives Andersson more talking-points than any other film she's been in,
goes through some hurtful parts of her past, and just tries to
understand her counter-part. At one point, a vein of existentialism is
ruptured thoughtfully, when Alma gets Elisabeth to say "No, don't",
when she threatens her. When I first saw this film, I knew this scene
would come after reading Roger Ebert's review. But I had no idea it
would hit me like it did. There is such a great, compelling tension
between these two that Andersson and Ullmann convey that it is what
makes the film work. Any lessor actresses might fumble up the whole lot
of it.

While it isn't my favorite Bergman film (though it is unfair to pick
favorites sometimes when it comes to someone as huge in the
cine-consciousness as him), there are many things that had me come back
to it after being a little awe-struck on my first viewing last year.
For one thing, there's Sven Nykvist, with one of the strongest, most
varying eyes in all of European cinema.

In the first five minutes, of course, there is some fascinating stuff,
but even in the scenes of long dialog and monologue (i.e. the
unforgettable speech about being on the beach from Alma), where the
lighting is so delicate and sharp with the shadows that you really feel
like the weight of this situation is closing in on the characters. Or,
of course, when the two actresses' faces are super-imposed, which can
be interpreted in more ways than one (either as a grand statement, or
as pretension, or something else). I was also very moved by the pace of
the film, how it fills each minute (it's not a long movie) in ways that
some movies just float minutes by.

Now, this is the kind of Bergman film that can't be turned on any time
(not to make it sound un-watchable, it certainly isn't). But it does
ask to be viewed when in a certain frame of mind- if you're looking for
a movie to show off to your friends, like it's the Euro/avant-garde
version of Fight Club minus the violence, look away. It poses a good
many questions for a viewer, especially one who knows of Bergman's
themes he's explored before and after this film's release. How do we
feel, or know we're feeling? What keeps us closed in? Why do we hurt?
And are we only one person at a time?

It's all the more puzzling that Bergman's climax isn't a very easy one
(not as doomed as with Seventh Seal but not as cheerful as Fanny and
Alexander), as Alma has another monologue with Elisabeth, about her son
she hasn't seen in a long while- this famously seen from two different
angles, one after the other. Furthermore, it is arguably Bergman's most
self-conscious film to date (the commentary on the DVD carries it
well), however it may not be as off-putting as with some of Godard.

To put it another way, there are two sides to the subject matter, the
film, the director, and the audience.

Was the above review useful to you?

59 out of 94 people found the following review useful:

Love Poem to Liv Ullmann

There are few motion pictures that rely on bodily expression and imagery as
most films depend too much on dialogue and speech. Persona(1966) is one of
those raw movies that succeeds almost on a metaphysical level. Its about
the relationship between an actress who broke down during a stage
performance and the nurse who is assigned to take care of her. Bergman's
camera has a fascination with Ullmann's figure as most of the film's closeup
shots are on her. Liv Ullmann does an outstanding job in playing a
character that hardly utters a line of dialogue.

There are a few scenes where the image dominates the screen in a manner that
hasn't been done successfully since the silent film period. The director,
Ingmar Bergman did an excellent job in presenting powerful images with the
use of natural sound. Persona(1966) is a triumph of acting because both
Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann are terrific in their perspective roles.
There is hardly any movie music and this adds to the tension between the two
women. Its a film that was deserving of a Oscar for Best Foreign Film in
1966.

One scene that was wonderful is when Alma describes her life to her patient.
Another excellent scene is when Mr. Vogler mistakes Alma for his wife(its
as if he too has suffered a breakdown and has failed to recognize his own
wife). Finally, the sequence where Alma and Mrs. Vogler's image blends
together to form one person. Its an errie image because they cease to exist
as individual people. Persona(1966) would influence Robert Altman very
greatly when he directed the film, Three Women(1977).

Was the above review useful to you?

39 out of 58 people found the following review useful:

A modernist masterpiece...

In the early '60s, Bergman's visual and narrative style became ever
more austere in focusing on tormented souls seeking guidance and
comfort from an empty heaven, thus paving the way for a stark foray
into extreme close-up in the enigmatic "Persona."

A modernist masterpiece, the film initiated an introspective trilogy
about the ivory towers built by artists as a defense against the horror
of existence It was Bergman's first completely innovative work,
acknowledging itself as artifice through the regular insertion of
non-narrative images such as projectors burning, film breaking,
fragment of silent movies

"Persona" depicts the vampiric relationship between a talkative nurse
and an actress who refuses to speak or work after a traumatic
realization of the futility of creation in a loveless world surrounded
by war Psychology, philosophy and social comment are mixed to
brilliant effect in a complex, clear interrogation both of filmic
illusion and of the illusory values of modern life

Was the above review useful to you?

27 out of 38 people found the following review useful:

The Art Of Bergman

From its opening, seemingly random B&W images, Ingmar Bergman's
"Persona" screams intellectualism. The film is cold, clinical, and
abstract. It induces deep, philosophical questions that lack answers,
or questions that provide for a multiplicity of emotionally
unsatisfying answers.

About eight minutes into the film, the story begins. In a hospital,
young Nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) is assigned to care for Elisabeth
Vogler (Liv Ullmann), an actress who, for no apparent reason, has
ceased speaking. Concluding that there is nothing physically or
mentally wrong with Elisabeth, the hospital exports her to a seaside
cottage, where she is to be cared for by Nurse Alma. Most of the rest
of the film is set at the cottage, where the two women get to know each
other. But throughout, Elisabeth does not speak. She communicates only
with facial expressions and body gestures.

For all of Elisabeth's silence, the film's script is remarkably talky.
Nurse Alma talks in long monologues: asking, probing, recalling. She
tries to build a relationship with Elisabeth, by vocalizing her own
memories and emotional pains in life. Certainly, the film's curious
narrative has a lot to "say" about the art, or rather the
artificiality, of human communication.

The best element of the film is the artistic, B&W cinematography by
Sven Nykvist. Lighting trends toward high contrast, with stark
boundaries between light and darkness, a feature that contributes to
the film's cold, intellectual tone. There are lots of close-up shots,
even extreme close-ups, of the two women. The film's production design
is ascetic, unadorned, austere. And this, too, enhances the analytic,
abstract feel of the film.

Bergman conceived "Persona" while he was confined to a hospital. And I
am inclined to think that the film is a cinematic expression of his own
inward psychological struggles during that period of his life.

In other words, "Persona" communicates to us as much about Bergman's
mindset, and his ideas of suffering and reality, as it does about any
deep, universal questions in a post-modern world, although to some
extent, the two dimensions intersect and overlap. Bergman is telling us
that, ultimately, the film is not real. It is "nothing". It is an
artificial human construct. That is, it is art, a perception that
approximates, but does not replace, what we experience as reality.